We will always get a welcome contact from wargaming as the fact we do support them financially. If they don’t post in game updates or moderate this forum and this place becomes the wild West with spam, troll post, excessive rule violations, or just absent posting in general then it won’t matter anymore.

Ookla_the_Mok, on 21 June 2018 - 08:57 PM, said:

If I want idiocy I have Reddit.

Folks, I'm honestly perplexed this thread hasn't been closed and that I haven't been banned for being a non-conforming dissident. But - it is only 0800 hrs in Belarus as I type this.

I said this to the Blitz PR team on both Facebook & Twitter:

"@WoTBlitz
You seriously need to gainfully employ an NA forum moderation staff that live and work in the western hemisphere - and does not require Google Translate to communicate with your customers. The NA forum today is a toxic, lawless waste of a .com domain."

Ban all the trolls! They suck and make me want to explode in a fit of rage when I see one respond to me. I’m still recovering from that one numb nut that created that awful idea of armor and penetration values based on WR. Boy, that was a doozy!

Be it that the World of Tanks Blitz development and production team are still mourning over the loss of Vladmir Komarov, unsettled after the layoffs at Wargaming's Seattle offices (Blitz wasn't affected) or perhaps embarrassment over the Soviet Union's failed N-1 moon rocket, I think most of us who have completed the 8th grade can agree there's a major lack of actual forum discourse moderation and engagment here. Sure, we get pop-ins from time to time about balancing adjustments, patch updates and the cookie-cutter "we're working on it" or "The problem will solve itself in time™" but when was the last time we've seen a locked thread due to exorbitant trolling or perma-bans for the truly puerile of the bunch?

I admit that from time to time there's been positive dialogue between players and staff but when was the last time anyone can recall having events and contests resulting in in-game gifts? Those that were here when SuperNikoPower and CC_Sly were running the show (to name a couple) remember when friendly banter was common, memorable discussions transpired and the actual World of Tanks Blitz Forum Rules were enforced. While 5.0 fixes a large issue most of us have expressed concern with since 3.8, many other bugs and issues seem to be barely acknowledged. The most recent is the now broken auto-aim that MaXSty1er somewhat acknowledged with a google-translated "we're looking into it". Given the lack of staff presence here - and you can't argue the blatant absence of moderation given a sampling of threads like:

There's more, for sure. That said, there was once a time in this forum's past where threads like these would be locked within at least an hour due to non-constructive content or closed after a cordial "This will cause unrest". Those days are gone. Despite the outstanding Community Pledgehaving many signatures (as well as being a requirement for entry into the Triarii family of clans, this forum has slowly devolved into the lawless wild-west with constant bickering between adolescents and others overly obsessed with what their version of what right looks like. Players like SpartacusDiablo have petitioned the staff to enlist vetted, adult player/moderators to help "keep the streets clean" - that proposal was shot down faster than Korean Air 007. The Blitz Community Coalition had roots with the Blitz Community Council - in which the staff engaged with players in a proper two-way fashion. acrisis had invested a lot in the BCC - but once again ignored by our Cypriot/Belarussian handlers.

In order for those of us like-minded adults, professional gamers (best of luck at Mobile Masters), and otherwise non-troll players we have to hit that report button. My ignore list has over 100 individual accounts blocked. Report obvious violations of the Forum Rules. Keep this forum clean and for what it was meant for - assisting others and sharing one-another's passion for this game.

Use the search bar and game discussion section to find what you're looking for in order to mitigate cluttered, redundant posts that have been discussed, answered and put to bed. Encourage players willing to listen in-game to come here as the go-to for information. Try using the Community Pledgeor something you create not too dissimilar as a pre-requisite for entry into your clan.

As a combat veteran still serving, pushing 40 and having little tolerance for some of the folks here that assuredly will repeat the 7th grade next September due to a complete failure in academic effort - I must insist that until we forumers who have been here for a bit and remember the good days do what we can to look after ourselves and do what we can to take out the trash. This is our forum and the staff doesn't have our back here. I've seen an exodus of many players to other modes of communication, namely Discord. I'm curious to see what would happen if those of us who don't spend every minute of forum presence trolling threads with ad hominems and hardcore stat shaming went somewhere else to discuss the game. Let's try not to make that a reality.

TL;DR

Report the Trolls
Block the Trolls
Use the Search Window to avoid creating redundant threads

I'm proud to be a member of the Triarii Clan - comprised of like minded adults ranging from mid 20's to mid 60's, of all races, genders & careers. We and our good friends in the SPUD family of clans aren't going anywhere.

Your dumb. This is warganings forum not usses. Peple that make threds like this dont undrstsnd how the game works. And u arent sopposed to tell you’re age online. Even if its a general age group. Pls go away and noy post on the forums agin becuse in realitie you dont get how the game really works. Warganing owns this game and that mens you cant tell them what to do

Sadly the better / great community days are behind us. While we had intermittent presence from the NA in the forum, we still had community contests, forum contests, etc and could also count on the Club Wargaming members like Lokeen, Str8UpJack, Shawk, ... to keep things interesting. We had a few forum greats for articles like Thunderties and CptCheez with data. Then some extra forumers grew into being ...

When the wheels started to fall off with WG HQ, we were able to form a couple groups, including the BCC that tried to push hard for change ... communication with NA was better than ever ... but sadly HQ pulled the plug.

5.0 gives hope for the game's long time viability to be more than just churn; and for veterans to stick around longer .... but sadly, unless we get some NA staff back, I don't think we'll have community liaisons and local in-game and offline contests again.

Your dumb. This is warganings forum not usses. Peple that make threds like this dont undrstsnd how the game works. And u arent sopposed to tell you’re age online. Even if its a general age group. Pls go away and noy post on the forums agin becuse in realitie you dont get how the game really works. Warganing owns this game and that mens you cant tell them what to do

This troll post (from obviously some alternate account) is it interesting example of how people really don’t understand the business world. The consumer (that will be us the players), actually has significant influence in how the supplier acts.

At least this is generally true for functioning companies.

The fact WarGaming does in fact have a Blitz forum shows they do (or did) understand that interaction with their players was a good thing.

We the player are the ones who put coins in their coffers. If we stop buying the game would wither and die so no one wants that to happen clearly the issue is finding a balance between what we want and what more gaming is willing to do if we stop buying the game would wither and die so no one wants that to happen clearly the issue is finding a balance between what we want and what wargaming is willing to do.

Some of the other regions community managers manage to dig holes and eventually internal dissension between wargaming headquarters in the regions led to the fact that the regional community wasn’t getting anywhere and wargaming no longer saw them as a value add.

I tend to understand why wargaming chose this path, I don’t happen to like it but I understand why they did what they did.

One needs to understand that it’s is an oligarchy, a system that isn’t conducive to back and forth dialogue.

They listen to data (read dollars), and if they thought adding back Regional ‘puppets’ would bring in a significant ROI on those positions they’d be back overnight. It’s not about goodwill, it’s about the bottom line.

Frankly I think Ribble and Co do a pretty thankless job - and while I don’t think it works well from a player perspective, I can see why it is done company wise.

Yes it would be nice to have a native English speaker post, but that ship sailed.

Despite all the pessimism that, I too, am indulging in, I'd just like to remind everyone: WG does care about NA. No, I'm not trying to take WGs' side on this. But lets look at this realistically. It may be true that NA is the second smallest community behind Asia, but even the fraction of that fraction of a fraction that is the forums is a relatively large income demographic. WG might not consider us on their list of higher priorities, but we are still important enough.

WG basically has taken a "child" approach with NA. All of their news articles as of the last while, at least from what I've observed, seem fairly tailored to feel "friendly" towards younger kids. WG decided to take the "treat them like children, milk them like children approach", but because NA is so small, we on the forums still matter. They just, for whatever reasons, more or less ignore us. Possibly this is the "don't say anything, don't get in any trouble" approach. By not interacting with us, the, realistically, top couple percent of the playerbase they also don't say anything that all of us will grab by the throat and tie a noose around. "They spend, and don't get anything to take us out on" is, at least possibly, WGs' approach for the time being.

This is just speculation. But at this point, that's all we can do. Of course it could always just be that WG is pulling a Mr. Krabs and is penny pinching by refusing to hire any NA employees. Or they possibly simply don't want to have another incident like in days gone by, where the different regions staff team "clanned together" and it became, basically, a WG clan wars. Now, that one I can understand. But, like C6 said, bottom line is always about the green. For whatever reason they took this new approach, it's obviously working, or they wouldn't continue to use it.

Edited by BrickSniper33A, 22 June 2018 - 04:47 PM.

In civilized countries saying Star Wars is better than Dr. Who and Star Trek should be punishable by death.

Your dumb. This is warganings forum not usses. Peple that make threds like this dont undrstsnd how the game works. And u arent sopposed to tell you’re age online. Even if its a general age group. Pls go away and noy post on the forums agin becuse in realitie you dont get how the game really works. Warganing owns this game and that mens you cant tell them what to do

I think most of us who have completed the 8th grade can agree there's a major lack of actual forum discourse moderation and engagment here. Sure, we get pop-ins from time to time about balancing adjustments, patch updates and the cookie-cutter "we're working on it" or "The problem will solve itself in time™" but when was the last time we've seen a locked thread due to exorbitant trolling or perma-bans for the truly puerile of the bunch?

I admit that from time to time there's been positive dialogue between players and staff but when was the last time anyone can recall having events and contests resulting in in-game gifts? Those that were here when SuperNikoPower and CC_Sly were running the show (to name a couple) remember when friendly banter was common, memorable discussions transpired and the actual World of Tanks Blitz Forum Rules were enforced. While 5.0 fixes a large issue most of us have expressed concern with since 3.8, many other bugs and issues seem to be barely acknowledged. The most recent is the now broken auto-aim that MaXSty1er somewhat acknowledged with a google-translated "we're looking into it". Given the lack of staff presence here - and you can't argue the blatant absence of moderation given a sampling of threads like:

2)

As a combat veteran still serving, pushing 40 and having little tolerance for some of the folks here that assuredly will repeat the 7th grade next September due to a complete failure in academic effort - I must insist that until we forumers who have been here for a bit and remember the good days do what we can to look after ourselves and do what we can to take out the trash. This is our forum and the staff doesn't have our back here. I've seen an exodus of many players to other modes of communication, namely Discord. I'm curious to see what would happen if those of us who don't spend every minute of forum presence trolling threads with ad hominems and hardcore stat shaming went somewhere else to discuss the game. Let's try not to make that a reality.

3)

I'm proud to be a member of the Triarii Clan - comprised of like minded adults ranging from mid 20's to mid 60's, of all races, genders & careers. We and our good friends in the SPUD family of clans aren't going anywhere.

1) WarGaming felt that the NA staff was giving away too much stuff. You will not have events coming back like the NA staff ran. They felt we were spoiled compared to the other servers. :Shrug:

It was often interesting to hear CC_sly discuss how they felt about giving their digital goods away, and the monetary value they associated with something that had no actual substance... and something that they could just make more of with a press of a button.

We're not getting that back... and to be honest, not a heck of a lot has changed from the the feedback/game changes circle... I think that the Staff here in the NA had a thankless frustrating job to do. They knew they couldn't effect much. There job was to placate and do what they could without any sort of actual ability to follow that up...

WarGaming has always followed what they believed would work on the Russian side. The only time our actions have effected them is when we have spoken with our money.

Same applies now... So in that sense, what has changed other than the fact that we don't have company spokes people who can communicate with us using our own language?

Don't get me wrong, I miss Sly... and Alo... and the others... but after talking with them... yeah... just yeah.

It is what it is.

They don't care until the funding stops flowing in.

2) Thanks for your service.

3) 60's... yeah right. Ha ha ha. Good one. I know for a fact that the original Tri-Eye Charter is chiseled on stone tablets. The upper end of that age bracket needs to be "adjusted."

Ookla_the_Mok, on 21 June 2018 - 09:57 PM, said:

I am mostly an A-hole with standards in real life too.

I agree. 100% agree with this. More truthful posts than this are rarely found on this forum at any point in it's timeline.

_Malicious_, on 21 June 2018 - 11:02 PM, said:

I believe WarGaming gave up on interaction with the NA community after they decided global chat was too "difficult" to moderate and shut that down.

And their judgement may have crept onto the forums aswell perhaps.

It's really sad, the forum used to be so nice back in 2015/16.

The old moderators really seemed to enjoy interacting with us, but I don't remember what happened to them all..

I don't think they ever really cared what we had to say. It was a way to hype interest in the game, and give people something to communicate on. A way to reach people here to say what they are selling and why we should care.

The mods got canned because of "corporate restructuring." It was easier to put a few extra screens on the desktop of the guy in Russia already monitoring some other forums than to have a complete staff in a different country.

Plus, those staff members kept coming to them with "concerns" about the game.

Easiest way to get rid of the complaints coming from a different country that you don't really care about is to stop looking in the complaint box.

SpottedBass, on 22 June 2018 - 02:42 AM, said:

Your dumb. This is warganings forum not usses. Peple that make threds like this dont undrstsnd how the game works. And u arent sopposed to tell you’re age online. Even if its a general age group. Pls go away and noy post on the forums agin becuse in realitie you dont get how the game really works. Warganing owns this game and that mens you cant tell them what to do

RoBlox avatar. Check.

Communicates as well as a four year old with a keyboard. Check.

Wants folks to subscribe to some sort of Social Media. Check.

Part of the problem? Check.

This is why I weep for the future. Everyone will be a "Youtuber," a "Soy Specialist Barista" or selling helicopters at the mall while calling for help when they have a flat tire.

__Crusader6__, on 22 June 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

Frankly I think Ribble and Co do a pretty thankless job - and while I don’t think it works well from a player perspective, I can see why it is done company wise.

Yes it would be nice to have a native English speaker post, but that ship sailed.

Most of us wouldn't be here if we didn't care, and that's the saddest part of it. They wouldn't have to have a thankless job, but they consistently muck it up bad enough that it's become that. It could help the company too...

But as you said, that ship is long set sail, and is past the horizon now.